I am a preacher, not a musician. In high school I played the sousaphone in the marching band. Once I graduated, no one has since seen the splendor of me parading on a football field or marching in a formation tooting my big brass instrument.

So, when it comes to preaching and music, I do not bring a lot of expertise to the discussion. Yet, I wonder how preaching and singing meet in worship.

Do you think that preaching and singing complement each other in a worship service? Do you think preaching and singing have anything to do with each other? Is there a bond between the ministry of preaching and the ministry of music? Some preachers may not have even considered the question.

Before I went into teaching on the graduate level I served as a pastor (and have served as an interim pastor on several occasions since). Each week I worked on developing a sermon that would communicate what the Bible said and shape it in such a way as to speak to my listeners. Not only that, but I also strove to develop a worship service in which the music complemented the preaching and the preaching complemented the singing. It’s not a new concept, is it? How, then, do the Scriptures show this balance?

Paul wrote to a growing church to help them think about and practice the merging of these two parts of worship. We get a glimpse of this balance in Colossians 3:16, part of a list of various concerns about which Paul wrote to this young church. As I read this brief text, I asked myself, What do these words say about the role of preaching and music? Where do music and preaching meet? Colossians 3:16 says,

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

First, I want to explore what this passage says about preaching and second, I want to examine what the passage says about singing and then, how the two complement each other.

Wise gospel love teaches and warns through preaching

The word of Christ is to fill—richly fill, dwell, inhabit, live in—our teaching and admonition with wisdom. Wisdom is the capacity to assess a situation and then address it in words and action. We’re talking about wise gospel love because the word of Christ can be understood in this verse to mean the gospel.

Colossians 3:16 reflects the heart of another 3:16 verse, the gospel proclaimed in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him may not perish but have everlasting life.” This is gospel love that fills us. This gospel love is driven by wisdom in our teaching and warning. Every preacher almost instinctively knows that this is the case.

When we think of preaching we think of this task: preaching that teaches and warns with the love of Christ pulsating, filling, guiding us. It’s commonly understood around preachers. That is, this isn’t a hard concept for preachers to get—let the love of Christ, the hope of the gospel, be woven into our preaching and teaching with wisdom. Wise gospel love teaches and warns through preaching.

We know that this is the case, and I trust we practice it. But, we often don’t consider the second part of this verse and what it means for the place of music in worship.

Wise gospel love teaches and warns through singing

The Word of Christ is to fill our singing with wisdom as singing does the work of teaching and warning. This passage can be translated with preaching on one hand ["Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom …"] and singing ["… with all wisdom, sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs …"] on the other—both doing the same thing: teaching and warning. This gospel love through singing teaches and instructs, informs and challenges us. Even the manner in which the singing is done, is to be with wisdom, applying the right music at the right time.

My doctoral work focused on a 19th century Baptist, A.J. Gordon, who was not only a pastor, but also a hymnwriter who advocated singing that teaches and warns. Gordon edited four hymnals, composing lyrics and tunes. “Singing implies thought and meditation,” he wrote. He said, “As the people speak to each other in psalms and hymns, there is a rapid circulation of the currents of devotion.”

We don’t want to imagine a worship service that doesn’t have Christ filling our singing with wise teaching and warning.

What this text has to say to us today as ministers of the gospel of love is important for the ministry of preaching and the ministry of music. This gospel-focused, Christ-loving balance of preaching and singing gives us this reminder from this text.

Wise gospel love teaches and warns through preaching and singing

This text serves as a reminder of how the Lord can use the sermons we preach, the music we write, the songs we choose, and the worship services we shape.

Here are some ways to put this biblical truth into practice:

- Be intentional about shaping worship around the homiletical idea of the sermon, increasing the impact of the sermon text on the lives of the listeners through the songs sung, the prelude and postlude, the offering music, and the special music.

- When preparing to preach, ask yourself how the text can potentially reveal itself in worship. That is, in the music, prayers, call to worship, music, and even benediction. Sketch these out as you prepare the sermon.

- Get feedback from listeners after you have intentionally built the bridge between preaching and singing. Ask listeners if they are able to discern what you are trying to do in worship.

- Preach on the connection between preaching and music.

Preaching and music can teach and warn with wisdom. Music complements preaching and preaching complements music. Our love for Christ is expressed in our preaching and in our music, in our singing—that’s teaching and warning!

The most lasting of A.J. Gordon’s compositions is the tune he wrote to William Featherstone’s words, “My Jesus, I Love Thee.” Here, Gordon’s emotionally driven notes express his love for Christ and the love for Christ of those who sing it. And underscores that our love for Christ finds its way into our songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.

That’s the case for you and me, wise gospel love teaches and warns through preaching and singing.

Conclusion

In his book, Congregational Worship, A.J. Gordon underscores,

And singing is the circulating medium of worship. It distributes the fervor of each Christian among his brethren, and equalizes the devotion of the whole body. Hence, I appeal to your sense of fairness. If you, the people, expect the preacher to stir you to duty by his sermons, ought you not to put yourselves in the best possible condition to be stirred [by means of singing]?

When we do this, we, as the text underscores, express gratitude in our hearts to God. This is the dual role of preaching and singing: Wise gospel love teaches and warns through preaching and singing.

Scott M. Gibson is the Professor of Preaching and holder of the David E. Garland Chair of Preaching at Baylor University/Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas. He also served as the Haddon W. Robinson Professor of Preaching and Ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, where he was on faculty for twenty-seven years.